628 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Mexican representatives of the company would be very seriously offended. 

 Later my friend said, "I want a sixty-day vacation, and I'll take it in 

 Mexico. Will you let me go?" They finally agreed to let him go. The 

 Mexican representatives of the company were very polite and courteous, 

 but made it a point not to let him get out of their sight if they could 

 prevent it. However, one evening at the hotel he met a man thoroughly 

 posted on mining in Mexico. With this as a start he made a digest dur- 

 ing those sixty days of the mining situation in Mexico, listed all of the 

 important companies, listed the quantities and qualities of the metals 

 they produced. More than that, he secured an option for all the metal 

 that his company needed at a saving of a very substantial sum on every 

 ton. He then sent his report in to the New York office. They tele- 

 graphed back for him to report at once at New York. He then was told 

 that he should return to Mexico in charge of their entire properties, with 

 carte blanche authority to do whatever he wanted to down there, and he 

 built up for that company the largest mining property owned by any 

 company or individual in Mexico. 



This German Jew had me out to his home for dinner one evening. 

 Sitting at the table I noticed a handsome clock — an old-fashioned grand- 

 father's clock. I admired it, and he said, "That clock has a story." He 

 said: "My wife learned of a clockmaker whose physician said that un- 

 less he had a change of climate he could not live. I went to see him 

 and asked him if a change to a different climate or different country 

 would possibly save his life, and he said that it would, but he didn't have 

 the money. I asked him how much he would need and he said he would 

 be able to get along on $50 a month in addition to what he himself had." 

 My friend said, "I'll be glad to let you have $50 a month, and you can 

 pay me back when you have the money, and if you can't it's all right." 

 The clockmaker took the trip and was gone two years. It cost my friend 

 $1,200. On his return the clockmaker was cured. The man came into 

 my friend's office and said, "I am sorry, but I am quite sure I will never 

 be able to save enough to repay you; you have saved my life and I can- 

 not even give you back the money you have advanced before I die, but 

 I have something at home that I have been working on during my leisure 

 moments — it is a clock, the masterpiece of my life's work; I put my life 

 and my heart and my soul into it, and I would like to make a present of 

 that clock to you if you will accept it." And that was the clock standing 

 there in the dining room of the home of my friend. 



My friend started out as a German Jew immigrant; he now receives 

 $70,000 a year as the representative of the company operating properties 

 throughout a large portion of the West. 



I meet many interesting folks in different parts of the country. One 

 little visit I made was intensely interesting to me — that was to Spring- 

 field, Illinois. I had a case down in Springfield involving the Illinois 

 rates, and in the afternoon I started out to find if I could discover an 

 office that had been occupied by Abraham Lincoln. I went from building 

 to building, and finally found a copper plate which stated that Lincoln's 

 office was in a building formerly standing on that location. It had been 

 previously torn down. I wasn't satisfied with that, and the man inside 



